Numerous sweetener compositions have been disclosed in the prior art for various food/beverage products. In addition, the prior art has also disclosed numerous products acting as fat replacements or substitutes in various food/beverage products either in combination with sweeteners of the type referred to above or separately. The prior art in these two areas is discussed below in order to assure a more complete understanding of the present invention. The following discussion deals first with various sweeteners in food/beverage products followed by a discussion of products contemplated for fat substitution or replacement in food/beverage products.
Initially, in the area of sweetener compositions, significant controversy has developed over the possible deleterious effects of large amounts of sucrose, synthetic sweeteners and refined sugars or simple carbohydrates (DP 1 and DF 2) in the human diet. The United States and Europe have recommended modifications in the diet which include a decrease in the uptake of simple carbohydrates, and an increase in complex carbohydrates (DP 3 and greater).
It has also been recommended that sucrose consumption be decreased based on its cariogenic effects and due to significant concern and controversy with regard to the role of dietary sucrose in the etiology of heart disease and diabetes.
Low calorie sweeteners have been used as an alternative to sucrose, however, concern has been expressed with regard to their carcinogenic and other potentially hazardous side effects.
Refined sweeteners such as corn syrup, dextrose and fructose have also been used as an alternative to sucrose. However, they are considered "empty" carbohydrate calories because they lack naturally occurring nutritional components such as vitamins, minerals and proteins which are now believed to aid in the digestion of carbohydrates.
Sweetener compositions which are currently known and used as alternatives to sucrose may be divided into three categories. These categories include low calorie sweeteners, refined sweeteners and natural or nutritious sweeteners in the following discussion.
Low calorie sweeteners are sweetening compositions that have been prepared by diluting the sweetening power of synthetic sweeteners such as saccharine, cyclamate or dipeptides with dextrose, sucrose, polyglucose, corn syrup solids or maltodextrins.
These products have the advantage of fewer calories than an equivalent volume of sucrose. Some of these sweeteners, which include bulking agents such as corn syrup solids or maltodextrin in the formulation, also have the advantage of having complex carbohydrates. However, the low bulk density characteristic of these reduced calorie sweeteners also represent a very limited source (less than 0.5 g/teaspoon or 5 cc) of complex carbohydrates.
Very importantly, the low calorie sweeteners have the disadvantage of containing controversial synthetic sweeteners which also have off-tastes and which decompose under certain food processing conditions. They also have the disadvantage of a substantially lower bulk density than sucrose, thereby excluding their use as a direct substitute for sucrose in many dry food products. Lastly, these low calorie sweeteners are also obviously void of naturally occurring nutritional components such as vitamins, minerals and protein.
Refined sweeteners, as indicated above, include products such as corn syrup, dextrose and fructose as alternatives to sucrose. A blend of fructose and sucrose was thought to be advantageous in refined sweetener because less of the resulting sweetening composition product was required to sweeten foods, due to fructose being about 1.7 times sweeter than sucrose.
The primary disadvantage of such refined sweeteners is that they contain no other nutritional components such as vitamins, minerals and proteins, and for the most part are considered "empty" carbohydrate calories. The water whiteness of the refined sweeteners, as in the case of sucrose dissolved in water, is also considered a disadvantage since the consumer perceives this lack of color as evidence of the deficiency of natural nutritional components.
Nutritious or nutritional sweeteners contain nutritional components such as vitamins, minerals and proteins which occur naturally in addition to the normal carbohydrate content. These nutritious sweeteners include honey, maple, molasses, cane juice and hydrolyzed whole grain (sorghum, rice and barley) products. The distinct flavor associated with some nutritional sweeteners may make them undesirable as a substitute for sucrose in some food applications. Another disadvantage is the higher cost of natural sweeteners relative to sucrose making them economically unfeasible for many food applications where sucrose is currently used.
Nutritional sweeteners have been available in both liquid and solid forms. The solid sweetening compositions made from honey area combination of fructose, glucose and complex carbohydrates. The complex carbohydrates are added as a drying aid.
Dried molasses also required complex carbohydrates as a drying aid and resulted in a sweetening composition containing glucose, fructose and sucrose (greater than 25% on a dry weight basis) and complex carbohydrates. Maple syrup and cane juice have been dried directly by evaporation techniques and resulted in sweetening compositions primarily comprising sucrose (greater than 75% on a dry weight basis) and residual amounts of fructose and glucose. The hydrolyzed whole grain products have also been dried directly by dram or spray drying to result in a sweetening; composition including a combination of glucose, maltose and complex carbohydrates.
The nutritional sweeteners typically contain at least about 0.5% by weight combined protein, vitamins and minerals and are usually colored as opposed to the whiteness of refined sucrose. This relatively small percentage of nutritional components has been considered by some to be essential in the digestion and subsequent metabolization of carbohydrates.
Fruit juice concentrates are deficient in complex carbohydrates but do have a natural balance of fructose, glucose, sorbitol and sucrose and nutritional components such as vitamins, minerals and proteins. The primary difference between fruit juice and fruit juice concentrate is that the latter has been depectinized and concentrated to at least 40% and preferably to 60-72% soluble solids without gelation.
The flavor associated with these fruit juice concentrates of less than 72% soluble solids has also restricted their usage as a sweetener alternative for liquid sucrose or corn syrup. So called "deflavorized", "decolorized" and even "reduced acid" juice concentrates can be made from any clear fruit juice concentrate and have been made available commercially. "Fruit syrup concentrates" (as opposed to "fruit juice concentrates") are juice concentrates (thus depectinized) which are processed through a separate ion exchange system resulting in a substantially reduced flavor, color, acid and nutrients. However, some of these concentrates, and particularly pineapple, pear and mixed fruit, still exhibited significant color and fruit flavor identification, thus limiting their application.
The flavor associated with these fruit juice concentrates or fruit syrup concentrates, their poor storage stability, their physical and functional inability to be directly substituted for corn syrup or liquid sucrose in food formulations other than liquid beverages, and their high cost relative to sucrose or corn syrup have restricted their usage as an alternative sweetener. This is exemplified by the common use of fruit juice concentrates predominantly in the beverage industry at less than 10% by weight reconstituted juice, the primary sweetness being derived from alternative sources such as corn syrup products, artificial sweeteners, or sucrose.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,873,112 issued Oct. 10, 1989 to Mitchell, et al., under assignment to the owner of the present invention, disclosed an improved fruit concentrate sweetener composition and process of manufacture within the area of sweeteners last discussed above.
The patent disclosed a fruit concentrate sweetener composition and process of manufacture wherein the sweetener composition is formed as a blend of a hydrolyzed starch having a dextrose equivalent (D.E.) of up to about 25 and a fruit juice or fruit syrup concentrate of at least about 40% soluble solids and about 0% insoluble solids to form a liquor having a dry weight composition of about 40 to 65% complex carbohydrates, about 35 to 55% simple carbohydrates from the fruit juice or fruit syrup concentrate and about 0.5% nutritional components.
The fruit concentrate sweetener composition was preferably dried to about 78 to 80% soluble solids to make the sweetener composition suitable for replacing corn syrup and the like or to dry the product to about 96 to 99% soluble solids to make the sweetener composition suitable for replacing powdered or granulated sucrose and the like sweeteners. The dry fruit concentrate sweetener composition was also preferably compacted in order to provide a bulk density substantially identical to the bulk density of the replaced sweetener.
Because of the bulk density characteristics of the sweetener composition noted above, it could be substituted directly into most sweetened food and beverage products on a direct weight-for-weight basis compared to such conventional sweeteners.
Related U.S. Pat. No. 4,756,912 issued Jul. 12, 1988 to Mitchell, et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,876,096 issued Oct. 24, 1989, also to Mitchell, et al., disclosed a rice syrup sweetener product and method of production. The rice syrup sweetener of these patents was specifically disclosed for inclusion in the fruit concentrate sweetener and process of manufacture discussed above in connection with U.S. Pat. No. 4,873,112.
Accordingly, the above patents, as well as the additional prior art patents discussed below, are incorporated herein as though set forth in their entirety.
Numerous other prior art references have also disclosed sweeteners generally falling within the three categories initially discussed above.
As was also noted above, many different types of fat replacements or substitutes for food/beverage products, especially products such as baked goods, etc. have also been disclosed in the prior art. Representative examples of these prior art references are discussed below.
Initially, U.S. Pat. No. 4,973,489 issued Nov. 27, 1990 to Meyer, et al. under assignment to Curtice Burns, Inc., Rochester, N.Y., generally noted the desirability for replacing at least substantial portions of fat in the total calories for human consumption because of resulting problems of obesity and diseases such as heart disease. The patent further noted that possible low-calorie fats or fat substitutes in the then prior art included sugar polyesters, polyglycerol esters, sucrose polyesters (SPE), neopentyl-type alcohols and other sugar derivatives such as sorbitol and mannitol, glycerol dialkyl ethers, triglyceride esters of alpha carboxylic acids, diglyceride esters of short-chain dibasic acids, trialkoxytricarballyate, polydextrose, palatinose, polygalactose, N-oil (tapioca dextrin), microbiologically derived products, nonabsorbable synthetic polymers with properties similar to edible oil, tree derived products, low-metabolized natural fats and oils, biopolymers, branched polysaccharides and jojoba oil.
The Meyer, et al. patent further noted that one method of reducing the caloric value of edible fats and retaining the characteristic functional physical properties of fats in foods is to prepare fatty acid esters of sugar or fatty acid esters of sugar alcohols that have reduced absorption and digestion. Absorption and digestion can be reduced by altering either the alcohol or fatty acid portion of the compound. In conventional synthesis procedures, or example, interesterification can be used to prepare sucrose polyesters. However, interesterification frequently requires high temperatures and toxic solvents such as dimethylacetamide, dimethylformamide, or dimethylsulfoxide. Therefore, conventional interesterification is not suitable for food applications.
The Meyer, et al. patent then disclosed an improved process for the manufacture of saccharide fatty acid polyesters based on monosaccharides, disaccharides, sugar alcohols, trisaccharides, other polysaccharides and glycosides. These products were disclosed as being particularly effective as conventional fat substitutes with a novel method being disclosed for their formation. The fat substitute composition of the Meyer, et al. patent was more specifically referred to as a polysaccharide fatty acid polyester having at least four fatty ester groups, each fatty acid having from four to twenty-four carbon atoms and said polysaccharide being derived from a reducing polysaccharide converted into a non-reducing polysaccharide by formation of a C.sub.1-6 alkyl glycoside or from a reducing polysaccharide converted into its corresponding alcohol.
Still other prior art patents have disclosed different but related compositions acting as fat substitutes or replacements. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,911,946 issued Mar. 27, 1990 to Singer, et al. under assignment to The NutraSweet Company, Deerfield, Ill., disclosed a fat substitute comprising waterdisbursible macro-colloid particles having a substantially spheroidal shape and a particle size distribution effective to impart substantially smooth organoleptic character of an oil-and-water emulsion, the particles being composed of carbohydrate materials.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,262,187 issued Nov. 16, 1993 to Hahn under assignment to The Pillsbury Company, Minneapolis, Min., disclosed a low-fat dry mix including a cereal-grain ingredient base with a fat mimetic system of polydextrose, cellulosic material, non-fat milk solid or substitute, emulsifier, modified food starch, and a mixture of xanthan gum and guar or locust bean gum, preferably with lecithin and whey protein concentrate.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,250,306 issued Oct. 5, 1993 to McCleary, et al. under assignment to British Sugar PLC, Peterborough, United Kingdom, disclosed a composition with polysaccharide araban extracted from sugar beet, preferably a debranched araban, as a fat substitute in desserts, etc.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,143,741 issued Sep. 1, 1992 to Podolski, et al. disclosed substantially non-aggregated casein micelles to replace all or a portion of the fat or cream in food products such as frozen dairy desserts, icings, puddings, whipped toppings, fortified skim milk, dips, spreads and sauces.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,104,674 issued Apr. 14, 1992 to Chen, et al. under assignment to Kraft General Foods, Inc., Glenview, Ill., disclosed the suitability of microfragmented ionic polysaccharide/protein complex dispersions for use as fat substitute compositions in food products such as ice cream, salad dressings, dips, spreads and sauces and methods for preparing such dispersions and food products.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,077,073 issued Dec. 31, 1991 to Ennis, et al. under assignment to The Procter & Gamble Company, Cincinnati, OH disclosed a fat substitute comprising an ethoxylated sugar or sugar alcohol sucrose fatty acid ester. It is further noted that the Ennis, et al. patent disclosed a very wide variety of specific food and beverage products suitable for substitution or replacement of fat components.
Generally, the fat substitute compositions disclosed by the preceding references relied upon the fat substitute compound having a chain length or other characteristics imitating the mouthfeel of fat or cream in foods and beverages. However, the substantial chain length or chemistry of such particles tends to prevent them from being absorbed within the body and having any sweetening characteristics. In this regard, it is noted for example that the Hahn patent discloses the addition of a sweetener in combination with its fat substitute component.
Still other components or compositions have been known to impart sweetness as well as other characteristics which may be similar to characteristics of fats of the type contemplated for replacement by products such as those described above. In this regard, it is noted for example that crystalline fructose has commonly been employed as a sweetener while also relying upon moisture retention or hygroscopicity or humectancy to maintain or increase the moisture level in products such as fruit based cookie bars and granola bars which might otherwise tend to dry out.
In this regard, it is further noted that U.S. Pat. No. 4,293,577 issued Oct. 6, 1981 to Ciliario under assignment to P. Ferrero & C. S.p.A., Alba, Italy disclosed the use of fructose for substantially replacing sucrose in food products, particularly preservable baked pastry products. However, that patent is also notable in specifically including conventional fat components such as vegetable fats and oils or monoglycerides to provide typical fat characteristics.
It is noted again that the preceding prior art references are merely illustrative or representative of a substantial number of references disclosing similar products for use either as sweeteners or as fat substitutes or replacements but not in the dual role of both sweetening and fat substitution.